CALIFORNIA

In 1888 Thornton Chase's success with the Union Mutual Life Insurance
Company apparently led to a promotion or a transfer, and he moved to
California. He may have lived in San Francisco briefly; its city directory
gives his business address and lists him as an "insurance agent" in 1889. He
was also working for Union Mutual in 1892 at its San Francisco office, but
apparently during the intervening years he lived in Santa Cruz. The San
Francisco city directory does not list Thornton again until 1894, when he
maintained an office in the city but not a residence (by that year he was
actually living in Chicago).[1]

In Santa Cruz one of Thornton's desires was fulfilled; on 28 June 1889
Eleanor gave birth to a son. They named the boy William Jotham Thornton Chase,
the Jotham after Thornton's father. Numerous baby photographs speak of the
parents' pride in their child. To help rear him, they hired a nanny named
Annie Sullivan. When neither parent decided to baptize their son--apparently
by 1889 Eleanor as well as Thornton desired no contact with the churches--Annie
Sullivan took the boy to a church herself and had him baptized.[2]

Santa Cruz, in 1890 a pleasant city of 7,000 people, contained three
newspapers, four banks, a public high school, a public library, a street
railway, electric lights, gas and water works, and a telephone company.
Timber, wine, and shoes were among the city's products. Rail lines and
steamships connected it to San Francisco.[3] Because Thornton is not listed in
any state directories that include Santa Cruz, or in any city tax or voting
lists, and no city directories from the period survive, exactly what he did for
a living and whether he was involved in musical or theatrical groups cannot be
determined. Nor are any poems from this period known, either published or in
his personal papers. In 1905, to a Bahá'í who wrote poetry, he
said that "once in long years agone I used to `dabble' a little in rhyme,"
which suggests a long drought in his poetic activities. Probably domestic
responsibilities and work took up much of his time. A photograph of a camping
trip under Santa Cruz's redwoods suggests that the family spent time in the out
of doors as well. Eleanor Chase acquired many "staunch friends" in Santa Cruz
during their stay there.[4]

Information on Thornton's California period is extremely sparce. The San
Francisco earthquake destroyed many records there that could have contained
clues about his activities. Thornton himself says nothing about this period of
his life. A little can be inferred about his religious interests. In a letter
written in 1906, he notes that after abandoning the churches he "became for a
period empty of all belief in any of their teachings."[5] This probably refers to his
California years. Elsewhere he refers to receiving a "thorough instruction in
hypnotism" and having "practiced it somewhat," probably in the early or
mid-1890s. In the late nineteenth century, hypnotism was often taught as a
spiritual or self-help exercise, like transcendental meditation or EST.
Thornton's instruction in hypnotism was part of his religious search, but he
soon rejected it as a distraction from the spiritual and as potentially
harmful.[6]

California must have provided Thornton with new opportunities for studying
religion. San Francisco had a public library more extensive than Denver's and
probably had greater religious diversity as well. Even Santa Cruz had
remarkable diversity. From 1888 to 1894 a Swedenborgian who had converted to
Buddhism named Herman Carl Vetterling (but called Philangi Dasa) published the
Buddhist Ray from his cabin in the mountains outside Santa Cruz. It was
America's first Buddhist periodical. Although there is no evidence Thornton
knew its editor, it seems unlikely that in a small city like Santa Cruz he
would not have at least heard of Vetterling or his paper, especially when one
considers their common religious interests.[7]

Thornton's religious search had brought him to some conclusions about the
religions of the world. In 1893 he wrote his first book, Sketches,
which outlined the various reasons why one should subscribe to life insurance.
It was published by his company. The booklet's earnest stress on practical and
religious reasons for carrying life insurance suggests that Thornton's own
involvement in the industry was ideologically motivated.

One chapter discusses "practical religion," by which Thornton meant the
importance of the individual helping himself or herself. Rather than just
stressing Christianity, the booklet begins with an appeal to the basic values
of all religions:

Throughout the great religions of the world runs a core of doctrine
which is essentially the same in all. It is the precept "Do good unto
others."

Be the creed one of faith or acts, of trusting belief or of saving deeds,
the "doing good" is inculcated as a necessary adjunct, and in many religions is
made the prime foundation for all future happiness, progress and
salvation.[8]

Thornton had studied the world's religions enough to feel capable of
making general statements about them. The next paragraph, in a sense,
resembles the Bahá'í principle of "progressive revelation,"
although Thornton Chase had not yet heard of the Bahá'í Faith.
Of course, in keeping with the Christian bias of Thornton's culture, the order
of the prophets is decidedly Christian:

Buddha, Brahma, Mahomet, Swedenborg, Confucius, Moses and The Christ,
all teach it [doing good], and press it strongly upon their disciples; and even
the atheist and agnostic magnify it as lovely, and to be desired above all
things. It is the pith and sap of all trees of knowledge which the great
teachers of the world have planted.[9]

The list of religious teachers is out of chronological order; perhaps it
represents the approximate importance of these figures to Thornton Chase in
1893.

Thornton then argued that the principle of "doing good to others" is the
basic principle of life insurance:

No Trade, no Union, no Philanthropy, no Profession, not even that of
Ministry, and certainly no Business as thoroughly carries the religion of
"Doing good unto others" into practice as does the business of Life Insurance.
It is the ideal Religion made actual. Its essence and primal
object is to effectively provide for the needy, the widows and the fatherless,
to hold out to the sorrowful ones, not mere the hand of sympathy, but a hand
filled with substantial comforts. . . . Every insurance agent,
perhaps unconsciously, but not less actually, is a practical minister of
practical religion.[10]

Thornton then is even more specific and offers a line-by-line
interpretation of the "Parable of the Sower" (Matt. 13:3-8) from a life
insurance perspective. The parable describes an insurance agent, Thornton
asserts, who sows some of his seeds and birds eat them; that is, other
insurance agents gobble up some of his accounts. The agent sows some on rocky
ground, that is, he sells policies to some who then allow their policies to
lapse just before they are actually needed. He sows some seeds among thorns
that choke the seedlings, that is, he sells some policies to those who become
rich and, ceasing to appreciate their policies, let them lapse. But a few
seeds are sown in good ground and bring forth their fruit a hundred fold; that
is, some persons buy and continue their policies until they gain their benefit
from them. Thornton concludes, "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and
he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken
away even that he hath" (Matt. 13:12); he interprets the verse to mean "GOD
HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES."[11]

The rest of the book describes the various types of life insurance and the
various kinds of life-insurance companies and the advantages and disadvantages
of each. It describes and rebuts the various arguments against life insurance.
Practicality, planning ahead, and doing good to others--to one's wife and
children--are stressed throughout.

Sketches indicates that Thornton Chase's religious search had led
him to examine all the religions of the world and to ponder their basic
teachings. It suggests that he found a commonality in them and behind them.
However, he could not commit himself to any one of them. He respected them
and, as he later put it, "found many items of truth everywhere (some truth in
everything)."[12] But, Chase
noted, "as the years went on, and I could not even find any satisfaction as to
Who or What God was, and as nothing appeared for me to do for Him, Whom I could
not find at all--even with the years of daily study and search into the
teachings of the religions of the world, I began to despair."[13] Although every other aspect of
Thornton's life had been successful, his religious search--perhaps the basic
element in his life--had not. Fortunately, his wait was about to come to an
end.

Footnotes

[1]Langley's San Francisco
Directory For the Year Commencing May, 1889. Embracing an Accurate Index of
Residents and a Business Directory, also A Guide to Streets, Public Offices,
Etc., and a Reliable Map of the City. Together with The Officers of the
Municipal Government, Societies and other Organizations, and a great variety of
Useful Information, comp. W. H. L. Corran (San Francisco: Francis,
Valentine and Co., 1889) 339. In his application for a veteran's pension, 17
March 1909, in his Veteran's records, United States Government Archives,
Washington, D.C., Thornton Chase says he was in Colorado "until 1888" and San
Francisco "to 1893." Probably by "San Francisco" Chase meant near San
Francisco, since Santa Cruz is much smaller than the former and relatively
close to it. On 7 April 1892 Thornton Chase applied for a veteran's pension
and stated his address was 419 California Street, Room 20, San Francisco;
according to the city directory that was the address for Union Mutual. Neither
the city directory nor Thornton Chase give a San Francisco residence for him.
A photograph of a woman named Annie Sullivan notes that she was the nurse of
Thornton's son "from birth until four years old" (in possession of Thornton
Chase Nelson; photocopy in author's personal papers). Since the boy was born
in Santa Cruz in 1889, this suggests the family remained in Santa Cruz from
1889 to 1893.

[2]The date of birth of William Jotham Thornton Chase is
given in his obituary in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, May 1967. His
exact name cannot be ascertained because no birth certificate has survived; the
State of California does not have birth records before 1905, and the birth
records in Santa Cruz were destroyed by a flood. It is possible that "William"
is not part of his legal name. The account of his baptism comes from Livinia
Morris Chase, his widow, in a personal interview with the author. It was
confirmed in a telephone interview of Thornton Chase Nelson by the author, 9
February 1988, in Robert H. Stockman, Thornton Chase Research Notebook, p.
40.3, author's personal papers. None of the churches in Santa Cruz have a
record of his baptism, consequently it can not be determined in which church he
was baptized; Thornton Chase Nelson is under the impression that Annie Sullivan
was a Catholic.

[7]Notes on the Buddhist Ray, in Thornton Chase
Research Notebook, p. 15.4; Rick Fields, How the Swans Came to the Lake: A
Narrative History of Buddhism in America (Boston: Shambhala Publications,
1986) 130-32; the most complete account of Herman Carl Vetterling's life can be
found in Thomas A. Tweed, The American Encounter with Buddhism,
1844-1912 (Bloomington: Univ. of Indiana Press, 1992) 58-60.